Um, and those aren't pot plants in my header, in case you were wondering. Bamboo, silly.

The city is burning.

Wildfires on the periphery of the city are pouring smoke into the valley, making our ever-present pollution worse. Phoenix is in no danger, of course, but a clutch of summer homes in the mountains may be wiped out over the holiday weekend, should the fire race north through a canyon to Pine and Strawberry.

So much for our weekend plans.

Just about everyone (he says, making a sweeping generalization) seems to be going to San Francisco to celebrate Independence Day. I'm sure much clubbing and sleazing is on the menu. I think I'll be poolside, with a mojito and a hamburger on the grill. And fireworks from the roof.

So I'm pretty much behind the times. Lots of new functionality added to Blogger in the years since I've been a customer, and I'm not taking advantage of much of it. Updated the template today to add permalinks again, and comments.

I'm assuming nobody is reading this anymore, except the bots who crawl the site every day, but no matter. This is still my journal, playground, and personal space on the web. So there.

Holy moly. The rain, thunder, and lightning came down last night. After a day in the hair-dryer yesterday (112°F), storm clouds gathered and broke at about 10pm. Our dog spent most of the night in bed.. quaking, sitting bolt upright... expecting the end of the world.

And, of course, the power went out, and the city apparently descended into chaos. As the house heated up, sleeping was impossible, even with the windows cranked open. The police and fire sirens wailing for an hour didn't help. Everything didn't come back to life until 4am.

It's going to be a long summer.

The Solstice Moon from our front steps. Transylvania has nothing on us this week.

Perfect time to be reading The Historian. (Not bad for a vampire book.)

A little tweaking on the website, trying to be calm and Zen and stuff. Also, pictures. Email me with your comments and/or complaints.

It's Pride season. The residents of Arizona feel left out, as we get our Pride out of the way early enough to avoid being roasted alive outside in June. Pride in April doesn't hold much excitement for me.

Flagstaff pride was last weekend. Missed it.

Rumor has it we'll be in San Diego for the last Pride of the season... I'm not sure I can wait that long for a trip to San Diego though. My butt needs a beach soon.